Revival
by Sayie
Summary: DawnSpike after Buffy dies. Complete.
1. The beginning

I don't own Spike or Dawn, or any other Buffyverse character. (Wish I owned Spike, though...)

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"Everything in our lives had changed. There was only before and after she… 

God, I'm so silly, I can't even say died without crying. But I'm not supposed to be seen crying. They blame me, naturally. The outsider who caused her death… And such a coward. Why couldn't I bring up the courage to jump… at least the pain would've ceased. I'm not sure if I can bear the feelings any longer, but if I end my life, then her sacrifice would've been pointless. What am I to do? "

She stopped writing, tips of her hair brushing the pages where her tears where smudging the words. It was a week after the little funeral in the woods. A quiet week. A time of silent mourning. No one to blame or express any feelings. Xander and Anya went on a 'a little holiday'. Willow and Tara had a fight. Neither of them comes any more. Giles moved back to England. And Spike… Spike was the only one left. The night of Buffy's death he seemed broken, lost. But he fought his sorrow to tend _her_wounds: both physical and emotional. Dawn smiled at the memory. She still felt amazed at his strength. After some time she continued to write: it was the first entry after Buffy died.

"I live with him now. With Spike. It was difficult to persuade Giles. He was the only one who seemed to care. He tried to convince me to go with him to England. A 'change of scenery' and people might have a 'reviving effect' on me as he put it. What he didn't understand is that **nothing** could have a 'reviving' effect on me…not since… **it** happened."

She closed the little red diary. She didn't have any strength left to write. But she couldn't move either. When Spike entered the crypt she was still in the same position.

"Morning, lov'." He said, while he put a few bags on the table. "Did a bit of grocery shoppin' at the 24h shop. Got your favorite chips, Bit."

Dawn still didn't move. She was staring soundlessly at some unnoticeable dot on the diary's cover.

"What's going on, Nibblet?" He crouched in front of her chair, his arms on the handles beside her. "Come on now, up you go." He said as he helped her up.

"Look at me, will ya?" His tone was almost angry. She looked quickly up. He hadn't spoken harshly to her since** then**. Dawn expected it though. After all, it was his turn to accuse her. Spike pushed her hair behind her ear.

"You need to **stop** doing this to yourself. I can't make you but I can damn well try." She tried to interrupt him. "Hush. I don't want to hear another word of this. If it was anyone's fault it was _mine_. You can't take everyone's blame. What's done is done and there is no turning back. You have to understand that! You **can't**_ change_ the past, no matter how bloody much you want to. And no bloody reason to get yourself worked up like that."

Just as he thought he'd fixed it, tears started streaming down her cheeks.

"Bloody hell! What now, Bit? You know I'm not good with _that_. "

"I… I'm sorry….I didn't mean to make you angry…" She gasped for air, while all the tension and pain that were bottled up found their way out. "I …. I can't lose you too, Spike."

Spike reached and pulled her to his chest. Her head, he noticed felt so right… she really belonged with him, he realized. Tender feelings started flowing through him. His hand rested on her soft hair.

"You'll never lose me, Dawn. Never."

At the sound of her name, Dawn looked up and she saw in his eyes that he really meant it.

"Spike?"

"Mhm?"

"Passions must be on: morning marathon or somethin'. Wanna watch it?"

"Morning marathon? It's today?! Bloody well you told me, Bit. I completely forgot." He grinned. "_He looks sexy when he grins._" She thought and blushed at the impropriety of the thought. She quickly realized his arms were still around her. That really got the heat to her face.

"_I haven't noticed she looks cute when she blushes. But why am I making her shy?_" He wondered. He slowly removed his hands and moved towards the table.

"I'll turn the TV on." Dawn was still nervous as she turned the switch on and sat on the sofa.

Spike threw her a bag of tortilla chips and sat beside her.

"Haven't we watched that one?" Dawn asked after a few minutes, a bit bored.

"Dunno. But even if we have that's a classic. Jude is still chasing after Ted" "_She really is bored"_, he thought, "_How about some color in her cheeks, again..._"

He grinned, as he casually slid his arm around her.

Dawn looked quickly up and caught the grin flash before he again appeared to stare at the monitor.

"_So that's the way he wants it?_" She smiled inwardly and put her head on his shoulder.

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Tell me what you think and if you'd like it continued. Cheers. 


	2. Worries

I've decided to continue this since it just doesn't seem finished. I know I have to say it: I don't …. urgh I don't own any Buffyverse character… and I really really wanna own Spike… but I don't. Joss owns him (lucky him).

* * *

Dawn and Spike sat like that in front of the TV for some time, each of them experiencing this new closeness. It felt… cozy, safe. Dawn felt all worries drain out of her and at that moment she again felt guilty. 

"_What am I doing?! Minutes ago I was mourning my sister's death and now I'm all mushy with the guy who followed her around all the time. That's not right… she's dead, and I'm living … _" Dawn felt so ridiculous having any small quantity of fun while Buffy was never going to experience anything again. Dawn stayed like that in Spike's arms for some time. Now…she felt repulsive, instead of attractive.

"_What if he sees me as her extension… the only 'bit' of her he can have. I need to be my own person again. God, if people just saw __**me **__for a change!_" She left his embrace and headed for the exit.

"Bit… where are you going? Daylight thing… I can't come with you."

"I don't want you to come." She said as she went outside.

"_What did I do wrong?_" He wondered.

"_I'm sorry. It's not your fault. I just have to get away._" Away from the darkness and … everything that reminded her of Buffy. Including Spike.

She walked out of the cemetery and into the city with the hope that it'd cheer her up. But it didn't. People there were too happy. There were couples holding hands, families taking a walk, children playing. "_Why me? Why have I lost them,_" she thought as she sat on a bench.

Images of Buffy and her mom flooded her mind until she felt pain throbbing in her skull. She moved her head on her knees, holding it with her arms. Bent like this she continued her trail of thinking, "_I can't live like this. __**I can't. **__I'll turn insane…I need to forget them or at least learn to live with the pain…_" She remembered she had to breed deeply to calm her self. But the deeper she inhaled the more suffocated she felt. Pain started spreading across her chest. Her lungs expanded but she didn't feel the oxygen. She tried breathing even faster but that didn't help. Dawn felt her hands and legs light and bloodless and became frightened. She sensed someone touching her shoulder and asking her if she was all right. In her mind somewhere rang a reply saying, "_what a ridiculous question…_" She fell from the bench to the ground. Someone must have called an ambulance because she heard the deafening sound of the sirens or was it her head throbbing? How much time had passed?

Someone came and laid her back on the ground but she had already passed out.

Dawn woke up and it took her some time to figure out where she was. Slowly she pieced up what happened until the only logical conclusion was that she was in a hospital. She looked around and saw a doctor in front of her and on a chair next to her was … Spike. How much time had passed? He looked more worried than angry.

"Hello there, Dawn. I am doctor Anderson." The doctor said with a smile that seemed… patronizing. Dawn felt too tired to think about it, though. The man seemed to have waited for a reply because his smile now remained like a stamp on his face. He didn't move a muscle until she blinked twice as her form of reply.

"Dawn, do you understand me?"

"Aeess, " she cleared her throat, "Yes, I understand you." She said as loudly as her body allowed her. "What happened to me?"

"You've had a hyperventilation attack." He looked at both Spike and Dawn as if he was proud with the words. When he didn't receive the applause he must have expected he continued less proud. "What that means is that you take too deep breaths when you are stressed. This way you take too much oxygen which causes…"

"That can't be. I was suffocating." Dawn interrupted him.

"You felt like suffocating because of the lack of carbon dioxide and because you're cells where already saturated with oxygen." "_Whatever that means,_" Dawn thought.

Doctor Anderson continued with his lecture of how the process influenced her body's responses.

"Hold on, doctor what's-your-name, that's not the bloody issue here. How do we stop it?"

The doctor reminded Dawn peculiarly of Giles as he took of his glasses and started cleaning them. "Well, you don't. There are breathing exercises and meditation that she can do to avoid it but there is no certainty it won't happen again. The best way is to avoid stressful situations." He answered as he put the glasses back on. "She's had some sedatives for now so she'll calm down. I understand why…" he hesitated. He'd read the medical history and accidentally came to her family's cartons. No wonder the girl was in such a condition and if she wasn't careful this might become a common condition for her. "But it is essential that you _avoid_situations that cause her stress. She'll stay here for the night. Dawn." He said noticing she had started drowsing off. "Your chemical balance has been changed and you might still feel some aspects of the attack. It's a normal reaction."

She nodded, his words "_normal reaction_" repeated in her mind like a mantra as she again started drowsing off.

"Will you stay, mister…?"

"Blake, William Blake. And yes, I'm staying 'till I can get her back home."

When the doctor left, Spike dropped his defenses. He brought his chair closer to Dawn's bed and caught her hand in his own.

"What are you doing to yourself, pet?" He whispered, worry noticeable in his voice.

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Please tell me what you think. There will be another chapter soon. Cheers. 


	3. Where we belong

I don't own any Buffyverse character. I loooooove Spike.

* * *

Dawn woke up but didn't feel particularly refreshed after what must have been hours of sleep. Spike was still there, faithfully by her side. She smiled as she gently squeezed his hand. He looked up and asked: "How are you feeling, pet? You must be right knackered. You seem a bit off color." 

"_Again that question… how __**am**__ I feeling?_" she wondered.

"I'm… alright, I guess. How long have I slept?"

"Just a kip," he looked up at the clock above her bed, "an hour or two at the most."

"How long must I stay here?"

"Well, they have to make some more tests and stuff to be sure there's nothing else wrong with you… they say you're a bit underweight but they've assigned that to …"

"Grieving?"

He nodded. He moved his chair closer.

"_He looks so serious…_"

"Nibblet… I don't know what else I can do. You seem to be getting farther and farther from me every day. You need to talk. That doctor wanted to assign you a bloody psychiatrist but … you ought to know you can tell me anything, bit. You have to let this out sometime."

Dawn looked quickly away. She knew she had deliberately tried to distance herself not only from Spike but from anyone else, including herself. "_I've tried so hard to push this aside. Maybe I should … do the opposite._"

"I… I feel like it was all my fault. If I had never entered they're lives maybe things'd be different. Maybe mom wouldn't have been that worried and Buffy wouldn't have died. I feel as if I destroy everything that comes close to me. It's silly I know. And I also … I sometimes think you're here because you failed to save _her_ and …" "_I think I'm in love with you_. _But I can't admit it because if you hurt me I wouldn't be able to take it._"

He reached and pulled her into his arms. But this time she didn't cry. She felt…. safe. And she reminded herself that that was a _good_ thing. He sat on the edge of her bed, his arm around her.

"Dawn, I want you to remember something. I am here because I _want_ to. Not because I feel guilty or because I have nothing else to do. You… matter to me." "_That's the safest way I can say it. I'm not sure we are ready for anything else. Yet._"

They sat like that for hours until the night was almost over. Dawn made Spike leave so he'd be able to go to the crypt and meet her there.

* * *

"_You … matter to me._" Dawn repeated his words over and over. "_Why do I do it the hard way? I think it over and over until I get sick from it._" She walked down the road to the crypt. It was a beautiful morning, she noticed. "_I haven't heard the birds sing in a long time…_" 

She entered the crypt feeling maybe there was still a chance for happiness waiting for her. Waiting straight ahead of her. "_And in a crypt … from all places,_" she even chuckled as she pushed carefully the door.

_If I caught the world in a bottle  
And everything was still beneath the moon  
Without your love would it shine for me?  
If I was smart as Aristotle  
And understood the rings around the moon  
What would it all matter if you loved me?_

Spike bowed and pointed to an improvised dancing floor.

"Would you care to dance, love"

As she took his hand she felt her heart slip from her tight grasp.

_Here in your arms where the world is impossibly still  
With a million dreams to fulfill  
And a matter of moments until the dancing ends  
Here in your arms when everything seems to be clear  
Not a solitary thing would I fear  
Except when this moment comes near the dancing's end_

_If I caught the world in an hourglass  
Saddled up the moon so we could ride  
Until the stars grew dim, Until..._

_One day you'll meet a stranger  
And all the noise is silenced in the room  
You'll feel that you're close to some mystery  
In the moonlight and everything shatters  
You feel as if you've known her all your life  
The world's oldest lesson in history_

They danced and danced until Spike put his hand on the side of her face and whispered "I need you" as he lowered his face to kiss her. He waited for her to close the distance and she did. As their lips met, they realized everything was going to be alright. They belonged to each other.

_Here in your arms where the world is impossibly still  
With a million dreams to fulfill  
And a matter of moments until the dancing ends  
Here in your arms when everything seems to be clear  
Not a solitary thing would I fear  
Except when this moment comes near the dancing's end_

_If I caught the world in an hourglass  
Saddled up the moon so we could ride  
Until the stars grew dim, Until..._

* * *

Well, that's it. It's finished. This was my first Spike/Dawn fic so please don't be too... you know ;). 

If you want there'd be a sequel. Tell me what you think, please.


	4. Chapter 4

There finally is a sequel. It's called "My sunshine" and is still in progress. Please check it out and please review. )


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